The importance of soybean in crop farming of Kazakhstan

The article considers the biological features of soybean and its importance as a promising agricultural crop for Kazakhstan. For the first time, the potential of productivity of soybean cultivars is determined in the steppe zone of the Northern Kazakhstan on the southern chernozem soil. Cultivars are evaluated according to all parameters, which are used in recommendations about possibility of cultivating them in the conditions of the second soil and climatic zone of the Kostanay region. Spreading of soybean acreage requires the development of cultivars adapted for different zones of the Republic of Kazakhstan. In particular, it is necessary to create ultra-early ripening grain cultivars with a growing season of 80-95 days (000 and 00 ripening groups), with high attachment of lower beans that are resistant to shattering, to fungal and bacterial diseases. Sample cultivars 445/2 and Dina are characterized by the shortest growing season - 88 and 90 days, respectively. Cultivars Terek and Lebed have the longest growing season - 118 days, and the lowest yields on average for five years - 1.85 and 1.77 t per ha. From the soybean cultivars tested in 2013-2017, the cultivar Ivushka was particularly distinguished, it had a seed yield of 2.45 t per ha and a raw protein content of 40.0%. Sample cultivars K 589109, 180/2, 186 and 126 have also exceeded the standard for the content of raw protein. The cultivar K 583575 was distinguished in thousand-seed weight - 203.3 g. The cultivars Lebed and Tanais have also showed high results, exceeding the standard, - 189.6 and 196.8 g, respectively. The research results showed a possibility to cultivate soybean in the northern region of Kazakhstan and obtaining consistently high yields using modern ultra-early ripening and early-ripening cultivars. Joint work of the Kazakh Scientific Research Institute of Agriculture and Plant Growing and the Kostanay Scientific Research Institute of Agriculture led to the creation of early-ripening soybean variety Ivushka. The variety has been zoned in Kostanay region since 2018.